Top 5 Tips When Migrating to Google Drive

With our world leading migration tool, CloudMigrator, you can migrate files and folders to Google Drive from a number of different platforms including Windows file systems, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Box and even Google Drive itself.

Drive migrations can be especially complex when compared with mailbox migrations. Whereas mailbox data is generally static, files are much more dynamic in nature and have the added potential complication of creating permissions to migrate.

Our migration gurus have put together their top 5 tips when migrating to Google Drive, that will help to ensure you have a successful and pain-free migration:

Perform your Environment Scan

Before you even begin your migration, it is essential that you have a good understanding of the data you’re moving. The size, structure and availability of the data can have a big impact on the speed and fidelity of the migration. Using CloudMigrator, you can perform a scan of your source environment that will give you information on the number of files and folders, as well as the size and permission structure, allowing you to discover what you have and what needs to be migrated. It then generates a report, accurately estimating your migration's duration and flagging any potential limitations or issues before your migration even begins. This information allows you to plan ahead and takes steps to mitigate any potential issues, putting you one step ahead.

Communication is key

As with any data migration, some things will change or look different post-cutover, even if you’re migrating within the same platform. Therefore it is essential that you communicate with your users, and make them aware of any changes they may see after the migration; for example, they may not see their deleted items or have access to externally-owned files that they used to have. Communicating these details to your users ensures that there is no confusion on your Go Live day and also reduces the number of support issues your team has to deal with.

Create all your users and groups

It is essential that all user accounts and groups are provisioned in your destination G Suite environment prior to migrating any data. This is required to ensure all sharing and Drive hierarchies are preserved correctly during the migration. If all of your users and groups are not created before you migrate, you could end up with missing or incorrect permissions, and incorrect folder structures. Save time and improve accuracy by creating all of your users and groups beforehand.

Prepare an address mapping

If the email addresses of your users and groups are changing between systems, you should create an address mapping. For example, if john.smith@domaina.com is becoming jsmith@domainb.com, mapping this address ensures any files shared with those users are translated into the new Google Drive space. A full mapping of all users and groups should be specified if addresses are changing, even if you’re only migrating a subset of users.

Schedule effectively

You’ve performed an environment scan, communicated to your users, provisioned all accounts and prepared your address mapping file. The final step you need to take is scheduling your migration, and this is the last hurdle your migration project could fall at. The scan will give you enough information to estimate the duration of your migration, and you should schedule migration tasks around this, making sure you have enough time to complete the full bulk and delta migrations. Be aware that some delta migrations can take a long time if there’s a very high volume of folders to migrate as these always have to be processed to maintain the structure effectively.

CloudMigrator, a leading migration tool, enables organisations to easily migrate email, calendar, files to Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365. To find out more about the world-leading migration tool, speak to our cloud team on +44 (0)161 871 0330 or visit https://cloudm.co/cloudmigrator

Our website uses cookies to give you the best experience. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the CloudM website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. Read our policy.